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Step by step

The film tells the stories of five disabled characters where all their lives intersect with each other by means of dance and music .At that point the old dancer called Sevket gather all these people.

Gökhan whom was a very good dancer becomes physically disabled after a severe traffic accident and being aware of the fact that he will not be able to dance anymore ruined and changed all his life. After all these miserable events in his life , when he comes home after the hospital he learns that his mother and father are getting divorced and he has been dumped up by his girlfriend without an explanation only a short letter has been left . Gökhan is trying to rebuild his life but hard days started for him .Gökhan’s sole supporter for getting his life back was his mother.She encourages him for continuing dance on wheelchair.

On the other hand , one day Şevket’s son Tolga comes and tell his mother Zuhal and him that he will leave his four children to them and go abroad for working.This creates a big change in Şevket’s life. Şevket finds out that Ayşen ;one of his grandchildren whom is blind is highly talented in music and he decides to help her. One day Şevket takes Ayşen to a very famous musician for getting his idea about Ayşen’s talent but the musicians’s approach was discouraging . But this does not stop Şevket, cause he believes in his grandchild. He decides Ayşen to study with her grandmother Zuhal whom was an artist and they start working together for the conservatory examinations. Zuhal ve Şevket are very happy to spend time with their grandchildren.

One night Şevket was so impressed by the touching scene of Gökhan while he was trying to dance by his wheelchair in the street and they meet each other and have a short conversation about dance and music. Gökhan was fully impressed by the approach of Sevket and then he makes a short research about Şevket and finds out that he was a very famous dancer and Gökhan finds Şevket again and wants him to be his dance teacher and work with him. Şevket accepts the offer only under the condition of Gökhan obeying the strict rules and performing full dicicpline. While all the things happen Gökhan’s girlfriend whom left him after the accident comes back and they start to work on dance perfromance all together

Can is physically disabled and as he has no hope of life he spends all his time by getting alcohol and gambling cards with his friends. He even tries to commit suicide and cannot to do that either. His family is trying to do their best to make him hold on to life and for that reason his family insists on sending him to a therapy center for disabled people . Can accepts that offer and starts to attend to therapy sessions at that center . Can did not like the center firstly but then he starts to get along well with the orher disabled people at that center .Positive changes start to ocur in Can’s life with these new people and relations and he starts to evaluate all his friends and life style and decides to change his life and join the real life back again. One day he meets Gökhan .Gökhan invites him to his dance performance .Can was highly affected by the dance perofrmance of Gökhan and he meets Şevket over there and tells şevket that he also wants to get involved in the dance group.

The other day Can was also a part of the dance group. Even Bora and Efe from Can’s therapy center also joins the dance group. While their dance practices go on ,Gökhan and his girlfirend decide to get married. Ayşen enters to the music conservatory exam and she becomes the first . Şevket meanwhile completes the practices and all the physically disabled dancers were ready fort he performance night. The physically dancers perform great at the dance Show and Ayşen accompanies them as a pianist. All the struggle of these disabled people tells that , the disabled people just want tol ive in an in an accessible world where abled and disabled bodies are being treated as just human beings. The story is giving the message of “Being abled or disabled ,if you want something nothing will stop you.We are all equal, JUST HUMAN BEINGS…..”

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Disabled bodies always have obstacles to find place in the life circulation. WHY??? Because the society has two different conceptions ; “ Abled bodies “ and “ Disabled bodies”. Unfortunately the abled bodies act as if they are helping the disabled people but these helps do not touch the soul , do not hug the disabled people and do not treat them equal just as human beings. High donations, free wheelchair supplies, remembering them only in special weeks…etc. That’s not what the disabled people of the society deserve.

However the abled bodies ignore the fact that if a human being aims something success is inevitable. It does not matter if you are on the wheelchair or not. But unfortunately, in business life mostly in all sectors, the disabled people are not treated as equally as the abled ones. Especially when it comes to the screen,because of the current public perceptions of actors and actresses in films, priority is mostly given to visual beauty.

Even in films about disabled people the major roles are being played by beautiful and famous actors/actresses not talented disabled people. The message the film producers give is; “ We want to shoot a film about the obstacles of disabled people2s life we are concerned about you.But you stay away and just watch the film. You can be talented but the visual beauty and being famous is my priority

There are examples of films where disabled people had roles but not too many. Especially in long-length feature films there are no examples of having the whole key cast from the disabled people.

STEP BY STEP Film is the first Turkish Film in which all of the main characters are disabled bodies. In this film, major and minor roles are being played by, and many film crew roles filled by talented folks with physical disabilities. Our film include real life stories from the lives of four disabled persons.The film ends with a powerful display of art and dance, emphasizing the value of persons without regard to one’s physical status. We want to Show that those with physical disabilities can also bring visual beauty and excitement to the screen.Some abled body actors/ actresses also had roles in our film That was our struggle to show he whole World that abled and disabled bodies are equal and life should treat them equal.

This film was a great experience for all of us. All our disabled characters’s performances in Step by Step was their first as major actors/actreeses in the film sector. The same condition was valid for our director also.It is his first experience of a long-length feature film.

The shooting, post-production..etc. all the stages of our film were full of obstacles and we really struggled a lot especially for rising the required budget. The aim of our film is not earning money , not achieving high profit , our target is to change the perception of the society . We found partners .Our main partner is İZDESK Sports Club,İZDESK is a non profit organization (NGO) of disabled people .Then contracts for cooperation have been signed by the City of Buca Municipality (Izmir) , Gaziemir Municipality (izmir) and the IZDESK Sports Club. In addition with these partners lots of volunteer people helped us , lots of companies made donations.

We deeply believe in our heart that this film will open the doors for disabled people and draw the attention on these people and abled bodies will start to question themselves about their approach and perception on the disabled people. May be we will be an example for other prodfucers , directors in the whole world and the number of films like ours will start to increase. We just declared the whole world that DISABLED PEOPLE ARE OUR REALITY WE CANNOT NEGLECT THEM.